Book Launch with Paul Hoggart

Paul Hoggart will be be launching his new book, A Man Against a Background of Flames at Sarum College Bookshop on Tuesday 3 December at 7pm.

Expertise in Elizabethan country life wasn’t supposed to be controversial. But when Appleby and his Dutch colleague Van Stumpe uncover evidence about the suppression of a heretical cult, they arouse the ire not just of machiavellian academics, but a worldwide swathe of religious fundamentalists.

As the reluctant Appleby’s discoveries inspire thousands of followers, his enemies try to hunt him down, which sees the action race effortlessly between Amsterdam, Washington, New York and all over contemporary England. This fast-paced novel combines elements of the campus novel and the spy thriller into a riveting and sometimes surreal satire on fundamentalism and its suppression of doubt.

The novel is set partly in Salisbury and the surrounding villages.

Paul Hoggart is the scion of a famous literary family; his father is distinguished academic Richard Hoggart and his brother is Guardian journalist Simon Hoggart. He has written for The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and the Radio Times, amongst other publications. His interviewees include Sir Ian McKellen, Sir David Attenborough, Dame Helen Mirren and Patrick Stewart.